March 28, 2013

An analysis of 3,500 meal combinations specifically offered as children's meals by 41 major restaurant chains has found that 91 percent of them fail to meet the National Restaurant Association's own Kids LiveWell nutritional standards for children's menus. In general, the kids’ meals are high in calories, fats and salt. One-half of them contain more than the recommended 600 calories, and some pack more than 1,000 calories. Twice as many include soft drinks as offer low-fat milk, and the most common items are fried chicken, french fries and soda. The number of children’s meals that met the Kids LiveWell standards ranged from none, at McDonald's, Popeyes, Dairy Queen, Chipotle, Hardees and four other chains, to all the kids’ meals at Subway.

Obesity may be detectable as a gas, say researchers who give credit to organisms in the gut. Published in Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, the study found that obesity is associated with a distinctive gas given off by certain microbes in the gut. So, what does obesity smell like? As it turns out, nothing. Obesity smells much like methane, which is odorless in its natural state. Among the 791 participants, those with the greatest levels of methane and hydrogen gases in their breath had a BMI about 2.4 times more than those with normal levels of gas, and they had an average of 6 percent more body fat. Researchers believe some people are genetically predisposed to having higher levels of the microbe Methanobrevibacter smithii, which could put them at higher risk for obesity.